Monday, January 11, 2016

Violence In Iraq, Dec 2015

December 2015 ended with the second lowest number of
security incidents, while casualties stayed steady for the last quarter of the
year. Anbar, Baghdad and Ninewa were the most violent. In Anbar the Ramadi operation
was on going, in Baghdad IS was continuing with its terrorist campaign, and in
Ninewa the insurgents opened a new winter offensive against the Peshmerga.

There were 553 incidents reported in the press in December
2015. That was the second lowest amount of the year with November’s 530 being
the fewest. Baghdad had the most incidents by far with 240. Ninewa was second
with 93, followed by 76 in Anbar, 65 in Salahaddin, 25 in Babil, 23 each in
Diyala and Kirkuk, 5 in Basra, and 1 each in Karbala, Maysan, and Qadisiyah. There
are always more attacks then what gets in the media.

Overall, violence across Iraq steadily declined during the
year. There were an average of 27.3 attacks per day during the first quarter,
down to 22.0 in the second, 19.5 in the third, and 18.1 by the fourth.

Avg. Attacks Per Day
By Quarter In Iraq, 2015

1st Qtr 27.3 per day

2nd Qtr 22.0 per day

3rd Qtr 19.5 per day

4th Qtr 18.1 per day

During the month there were a total of 1,155 deaths reported
and 1,252 wounded. The dead broke down to 6 Yazidi fighters, 20 volunteers at a
Ninewa camp, 39 Sahwa, 47 Hashd al-Shaabi, 220 members of the Iraqi Security
Forces (ISF), and 684 civilians. The injured were made up of 5 Sahwa, 12
Turkish soldiers, 30 volunteers, 50 Hashd, 52 Peshmerga, 138 ISF, and 965
civilians. These figures should be considered a minimum because the Iraqi
government is suppressing losses and not all violence gets reported.

In Anbar there were 235 killed and 88 wounded. Almost all of
those casualties, 212 dead and 61 injured, happened in and around Ramadi. The
security forces successfully pushed their way into the center of the city by
the end of the month resulting in some heavy losses for the ISF. In the
aftermath 90 people were found executed within Ramadi and to the east. The Islamic
State’s main response to the advances in Ramadi was launching 100 car bombs and
30 suicide bombers during December. 88 of the vehicle borne improvised
explosive devices (VBIEDs) were destroyed, while 12 hit their targets. 25 of
the suicide bombers were also killed, and 5 got through.

Violence in Babil has remained at a relatively low level for
the last year. There has been less then one attack per day in the province
since March. During December, most of the attacks were improvised explosive
devices (IEDs), 18, along with 4 shootings and 2 sticky bombs. All of these
happened in the north in places like Latifiya, Mahmudiya, Yusifiya, where IS is
based, and resulted in 29 fatalities, and 79 injured.

As the Islamic State has gone on the defensive since its
summer offensive in 2014 it has concentrated upon terrorist attacks in the
capital. The governorate regularly has the most attacks and casualties as a
result. IS has concentrated on the southern section of Baghdad with 74 attacks there
in December. It is active in many of the outer towns in that region such as
Arab Jabour. The east had 64 incidents, but many of those were the work of
criminals, vigilantes, and Hashd elements that carried out a beheading, three
stabbings, four robberies, and all of the bodies dumped in the streets. IS also
attacked the district with a suicide bomber and 19 IEDs. The north had 44
attacks. IS has bases in southern Salahaddin that it uses to launch attacks
into that region of Baghdad. There were also 30 attacks in the west, and 24 in
the center. Surprisingly, despite the emphasis upon hitting the capital, there
was only one car bomb during the month, which was discovered and defused by the
security forces. Before Baghdad was hit almost every week by car bombs. This
might just be a break however, while IS reloads because it just ended a VBIED
campaign in November.

Diyala remained rather quite in December. Like Babil, IS is
using both governorates as bases to hit the surrounding areas like Baghdad.
There was less than one incident per day during the month. There were two car
bombs, but those are now rare occasions in the province. What IS has been doing
off and on is firing mortars into towns in the center of the province.

There was a slight upsurge in activity in Kirkuk as IS
launched a new winter offensive against the Kurds. On December 18 the militants
attacked two towns in the Dibis district and one in Hawija. IS then focused
upon Kurdish positions in Ninewa.

In Ninewa, IS was looking for a weak point in the Peshmerga
defenses, but failed to find one. It started its offensive on December 12 attacking
a new town every day with a mix of mortars, gunfire, suicide bombers, and car
bombs. It also attacked the camp in the Bashiqa district that housed Turkish
trainers after it got into the news when Baghdad demanded that Ankara remove
its forces from there. By the end of the month 6 Yazidi fighters, 20 volunteers
at the Bashiqa camp, and 121 Peshmerga were dead and 12 Turkish soldiers, 30
volunteers and 43 Peshmerga were wounded.

IS also kept up its steady pace of executions in the areas
it controls in Ninewa. That cost the lives of 197 people. A mass grave was
discovered with 120 bodies in it, most of which were ISF members with a few
civilians as well.

Since the joint forces retook Baiji violence in Salahaddin
has dropped off. IS is still active up and down the length of the province, and
holds the Shirqat district in the north. There was heavy fighting outside of
Samarra and in the Makhoul Mountains in the northeast where the ISF and Hashd
are trying to clear out IS pockets. That meant attacks in the province were a
mix of harassing operations like drive by shootings, 29, and IEDs, 17, along
with a steady flow of suicide, 11, and car bombs, 14. That left 57 dead and 99
injured.

There were 143 car bombs during the month. 26 were
successful and 117 were destroyed. While December’s total was comparable to
November’s 164 VBIEDs, there was a decided decline in their frequency until
Ramadi fell, and IS launched a slew of them in Anbar at the end of the month.
All but three of the VBIEDs were used in military operations in Anbar, Ninewa and
Salahaddin. Before car bombs were used in both attacks on the joint forces and
civilians in terrorist attacks. That pointed to IS’s car bomb campaign ending
in November.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com